‘Sleazy Boris Johnson asked me for one million dollars to interview him,’ says Tucker Carlson

Sign up for the View from Westminster e-mail for skilled evaluation straight to your inbox

Get our free View from Westminster e-mail

A confrontation has erupted between Boris Johnson and Tucker Carlson over claims the previous prime minister was ready to debate the controversial right-wing journalist for $1m.

Mr Carlson, who this month interviewed Vladimir Putin, stated Mr Johnson had demanded the seven-figure sum for a sitdown interview on the battle between Russia and Ukraine.

But Mr Johnson has disputed Mr Carlson’s account as “untrue”, with allies of the ex-PM saying he had supplied to participate within the interview for a million-dollar donation to Ukrainian veterans’ charities.

It is understood Mr Johnson pulled out after the homicide of Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny.

Mr Carlson has been ridiculed in latest weeks over his help for Putin and the Kremlin, having filmed movies praising Russian buying trolleys and admiring Moscow’s subway system.

It got here after the previous Fox News host sat down for a fawning two-hour interview with the authoritarian Russian chief.

Mr Johnson attacked Mr Carlson’s Putin interview, saying it was straight out of “Hitler’s playbook”.

He stated the American broadcaster had been the “stooge of the tyrant, the dictaphone to the dictator and a traitor to journalism”.

And, in a column for Mail+, he accused Mr Carlson of betraying “viewers and listeners around the world” for not taking the Russian chief to job for “the torture, the rapes, the blowing up of kindergartens” in Ukraine, stating that “not once did he even try to dam the flow of lies”.

Speaking to right-wing outlet The Blaze, Mr Carlson hit again on the ex-PM.

“Boris Johnson, who was for a short time the prime minister of Great Britain … calls me a tool of the Kremlin or something,” he stated.

He added: “I was annoyed. So I put in a request for an interview with Boris Johnson, as I have many times because he’s constantly denouncing me as a tool of the Kremlin. He says no.”

Mr Carlson stated that after reaching out to “a lot of people who know Boris Johnson”, he was informed he would do the interview “but it’s going to cost you $1m”.

“I said to the guy … I just interviewed Vladimir Putin. I’m not defending Putin, but Putin didn’t ask for a million dollars. So you’re telling me that Boris Johnson is a lot sleazier than Vladimir Putin?

“Which is true.”

A spokesman for Mr Johnson stated: “This account is untrue.”

Mr Carlson additionally mocked Mr Johnson, whose actual title is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

“His name’s not actually Boris… his name is Alex Johnson, he called himself Boris in high school, so the guy who calls himself Boris is accusing me?” he added.